No Conflict, No Story

 By Thomas Kies

Syd Field, author of Screenplay: The Foundations of Screen Writing, said, “All drama is conflict. Without conflict, you have no action; without action, you have no character; without character, you have no story; and without story, you have no screenplay.”

On the other hand, Ursula Le Guin claimed that not every story needs to revolve around conflict, advocating for the importance of other human experiences like connection, growth, and understanding. 

I happen to agree with Mr. Field.  Even stories about connection, growth and understanding stem from conflict. 

What types are there?

Man (or Woman) against Self. In my mystery series, the protagonist, Geneva Chase is an alcoholic. She also suffers from body dysmorphia and depression that leads to self-defeating actions.  The very fact that she succeeds at what she sets out to do (while being a smartass and snarky at the same time) is what makes her relatable.  I believe that most of us have inner demons that create conflict.  Have any doubts?  Wouldn’t you like that piece of chocolate you’ve hidden away in your drawer right about now?

Good against Evil.  This is the straightforward Good Guy versus Bad Guy scenario.  Superman versus Lex Luthor, Sherlock Holmes versus Dr. Moriarty, Luke Skywalker versus Darth Vader.  In real life, this might be more relatable if it’s you versus your boss at work…or you versus the insurance company…or you versus the cable company.  You get the picture.  It’s still good against evil. 

Man (or Woman) against Nature.  This is where your protagonist struggles against storms, earthquakes, animals, revived dinosaurs, or surviving in the Andes Mountains after a plane crash as in the movie “Society of the Snow”.  With climate change becoming more of a factor in our lives, we see this in real life with increasing intensity of hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, floods, and snowstorms.  Oh wait…they don’t want us to talk about climate change anymore, do they? That seems to be a bit of conflict with nature.

Man (or Woman) against Society.  Examples in literature are Orwell’s 1984 and Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Examples in real life…well, just watch the news.  

Man (or Woman) against Technology.  A literary example of this is Asimov’s I, Robot.  An example of a movie is M3GAN.  With technology accelerating so quickly, it’s difficult to use in your writing.  By the time you’re published, your premise might be obsolete.   I’ll have to check with AI to make sure I’m right about this. 

Man (or Woman) against the Supernatural.  Vampires, werewolves, zombies, ghosts…oh my. So many examples here.  Wait…what was that sound in the attic?

It really doesn’t matter what your genre is, conflict will be part of it.  Crime novel….will the cop catch the murderer before he kills again?  Romance…will the boy get the girl?  Historical fiction…will we win World War II?  

As Syd Field stated, without conflict, you really don’t have a story. I’m teaching another Creative Writing class and last week I gave a prompt to write a scene of about 500 words dealing with conflict.  I’m eager to hear how they did.  They’ll be reading their work in tonight’s class. 

Heck, just giving them the assignment, I gave them conflict to deal with. 

Mother Nature's wrath

Sybil's post about conflict struck a chord with me today. She listed the three basic types of conflict - with yourself, with another person, and with the environment. Including all three in the same story makes the story even more vivid. The more conflict and challenge, the better. The environment can be a physical challenge like a dangerous whitewater river, a steep mountain, or a dark, underground cave, but it can also be the weather. Many a classic whodunit has centred around a blizzard in a remote inn, and as a Canadian, the extremes of winter weather make it easy to imagine being blinded by the snow, losing ones way, floundering in the snowdrifts, and succumbing to the cold, not to mention power outages and blackouts.

Even a regular  mystery about interpersonal conflict can benefit from having some extra drama thrown into it by Mother Nature, and this summer is shaping up to be full of Mother Nature's wrath. Climate extremes are becoming more and more common, adding to the stress and struggles of people just trying to cope. Just today, Eastern Canada, and in particular the Toronto area, was hit with massive thunderstorms that dumped torrents of rain on the area within a very short time, with hail and tornado warnings added to the mix. Rivers and lakes overflowed their banks and flooded streets, blew the lids off sewer manholes, and caused widespread power outages. Luckily, although many people are inconvenienced and the cost of cleanup will be exorbitant, I have heard no report of fatalities.

But a mystery writer is always thinking about the possibilities. A body is discovered, a long-buried secret is dislodged. I remember an instance in England where a long, severe drought dried up some reservoirs that had flooded out villages years before, and no fewer than three famous British crime writers wrote mysteries about bodies that were exposed by the drought.  In the British crime drama I watched recently, After the Flood, a man's body is discovered in the cleanup of a serious flood, apparently drowned, but an autopsy revealed no water in his lungs. In my upcoming book, SHIPWRECKED SOULS, a house in Kyiv, Ukraine is hit by a Russian airstrike and in the rubble of the attic, a mysterious note is found that kicks off a chain of events that leads ultimately to murder.

Hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, landslides, floods, wars... The possibilities are endless. They can all cause massive destruction and uproot people's lives, shattering their sense of security and causing them to refocus all their priorities on survival and recovery. It brings out not only the worst but also the best in people. Against that backdrop of upheaval and potential death, human experiences and emotions are heightened. it's as if even everyday life is thrown into more vivid relief. There is a reason why some of the most powerful books and films take place against the backdrop of war.

The stakes seem higher, the potential for heroism and villainy amplified. The stories beg to be told, not to exploit the suffering of those enduring it in real life, but to bear witness and to do what we writers do best; examine the social cost.

Covid and Literary Conflict

 By Thomas Kies

 Two weeks ago, today, my wife and I won the lottery…sort of.  We both got our second Pfizer vaccination.  It was like this massive weight was lifted off my shoulders.  After a year of wondering if I’d catch covid-19 and end up on a ventilator in the hospital, my anxiety level dropped precipitously.

If I was of a mind to write something about the pandemic into my work in progress (which I’m not) I wonder what kind of conflict that could be defined as.  

Tonight, in my creative writing class, the participants will be reading the first few pages of their book.  I didn’t define what that might be.  I left that up to them. I’ve assigned this before in other classes and it’s usually pretty interesting.

We’ll also be discussing different types of literary conflict.  

There’s character vs. self.  This might take the form of inner demons—alcoholism, addiction, phobias.  Or it might be a moral dilemma such as: If you can’t afford food to feed your children and there were no other options, would you steal?  Is murder ever moral?  Can I have one more cookie tonight and ignore the scale in the morning?

There’s character vs. character.  This is the classic good against evil—the good guy or girl versus the bad guy or girl. With shades of moral nuance thrown in.  After all, don’t most villains think that what they do is right?  They might see their actions as being outside of the law, but it’s still the right thing to do.  It can be as powerful as a life and death battle in the climax of your book or being handed a written warning by your clueless, overbearing boss.

There’s character vs. nature.  This is where the hero battles forces like weather, wild animals, the wilderness, or a natural disaster.  Think Titanic. Think Old Man and the Sea. Think Texas after a snowstorm. 

There’s character vs. the supernatural.  This is more for authors of fantasy or horror and not so much for mystery writers.  My protagonist, Geneva Chase, doesn’t do battle with demons or zombies or ghosts. But in my first book, Random Road, Geneva rides along on a waterborne ghost hunt. 

FYI, that scene is based on a real ghost hunt I went on years ago.  The only spirits I saw that night were in the bottom of my wine glass.  

There’s character vs. technology.  I think this is more in the realm of science fiction writers, but I do understand the angst, anxiety, frustration, and rage I can feel when my internet goes out and I have to call the freaking cable company to get it back on.  

There’s character vs. society.  This can incorporate a broad spectrum of conflicts.  It could stem from race or religion.  Townies vs. the jocks on campus. It might be a character caught up in the raging fires of war. It could be me staring down an IRS audit. 

Then there’s something called passive conflict.  When the protagonist is being kept in the dark, lied to, or avoided.  Much less violent than physical conflict but can still do mental damage to a character. Much like being in high school and not being invited by the cool kids to any of their parties. 

I’m not bitter. Anymore. 

So, to circle around to the pandemic.  I guess we can slide that into character vs. nature. And I’ll be damned glad when we have all gotten vaccinated. 

The Small Things

Last night I was watching an old episode of  "Shark Tank". If you don't know the show, contestants make presentations to the "sharks" (a panel of celebrity investors), hoping to convince one of them to invest in the contestant's new product.  On the episode I caught last night -- because I'm always fascinated by the presentations -- a young man had developed a product that he offered as the solution to "bed head".  Rising to find your hair standing on end or a matted mess, you would put on a plastic cap that would saturate your hair with moisture, take it off and style as usual. As the young entrepreneur demonstrated the cap could even be used after you were fully dressed -- no mess, no fuss. As one of the sharks pointed out the product looked a lot like a shower cap. No one invested in the product, and I have to admit I wasn't impressed either.

But my reason for being unimpressed was that the young entrepreneur had lost me when he began his presentation by explaining that he showered at night and hated waking up "clean" with "bed head". For those of us who shower in the morning, the problem is either having to use a real shower cap or hair dryer or go out on a winter morning with damp hair. That brought me to the great debate -- and, yes, I have heard people come to rhetorical blows over the issue of when one should bathe or shower -- before going to bed or upon rising. Do you go to bed grimy from your day or do you put on clean clothes in the morning without washing your body. Of course, there is a third group that insists showering or bathing twice a day is the obvious solution. And a group like me that favors the morning shower but compromises with a stop at the bathroom sink before going to bed.

Yes, I am about to make a writing-related point. As I was thinking about the morning versus evening debate, it occurred to me that I was missing something when it comes to character creation. In my last post, I wrote about the challenge of creating a cast of characters for my historical thriller. As I mentioned, I've been consulting the writing books on my shelf. As a result, I'm been doing character bios and family trees and looking at dreams, fears, goals, and assorted motives. I've been asking myself questions such as, "What would  your character never do?" What I haven't asked myself -- and will now -- is how my characters do the things they do. When I'm reading a book, I love the dramatic moments. But when I'm getting to know a character, I look for and attend to the small things.

Actually, in real life, isn't it the small things that define who we are?  The way we do the things we do that the other people in our lives find irritating, bizarre, lovable, fascinating, or all of the above. Think of those 4th of July exchanges at the picnic table:
"Did you really just put mayonnaise on your hot dog? Yuck!"
"You do realize that cole slaw has mayo in it, right?"
"That doesn't count. Mustard. That's what you put on a hot dog."
"Thanks for telling me."

Think of the woman at work who uses her own silver teaspoon to stir organic honey (a jar brought from home) into her herbal tea. And across from her, the guy who is gulping strong black coffee while wolfing down a chocolate glazed something or other. He smirks at her, she gives him an icy stare.

So what occurred to me last night during the "bed head" discussion was that I need to flesh out my characters -- make them human -- by giving them preferences. Before I plunge them into the midst of my thriller, I need to follow each of my characters through an ordinary day and observe his or her choices. Some of these preferences could end up being moments of conflict in the book. Does Character X remain silent about Character Y's choice of mayo on his hot dog or feel compelled to voice an objection? Does Character Y smile, shrug, or ignore Character X's comment? How does Character X respond if he is ignored?

And that's why I'm going to make a chart displaying each character's personal habits and preferences. Somewhere in that chart will be gold.

P.S. I should add that the young entrepreneur with the "bed head" cap has since gone on to successfully market his product.